


Shadows in the Smoke

by salakavala



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, kind of an alternative Thedas or something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 20:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9200501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salakavala/pseuds/salakavala
Summary: The Bull's hunt for a Venatori magister takes him to the darker parts of Denerim.





	

It was his investigation on the Venatori crime league that led the Bull to the shady hovel that night. The hovel was in one of the darker alleys of Denerim, and fit in its surroundings pretty well; paint crumbling off the walls, no windows, a narrow wooden door, darkened with time. It was dark, but if the Bull squinted, he could see a faded triangle of once white paint above the door, and a darker, but equally faded blotch of paint that probably once was a logo of sorts. A rune, maybe, but could just as well be a dragon. Didn't really lessen the building's look of a Tevinter blood ritual dungeon, whatever it was for.

For a brief moment the Bull regretted not bringing Krem and at least Skinner for backup – looked like things could get ugly if he was careless – but there was no use of lamenting over a dead qalaba, and the Bull was never careless. Besides, the Venatori had messed up an orphanage in the Alienage, and this was the strongest lead the Bull had on their league; the Venatori were elusive shits and a pain to track, and Gatt had worked his ass off for this hint. So, he could risk shit going ten different ways downwards, or risk losing the best lead he had on the case. Not really a hard decision.

The door made no sound when the Bull pushed it open. There was only darkness, and an eerie, flickering light that looked like veilfire at the bottom of short stairs. The Bull squeezed his eye shut, firmly. Listened: not a sound, other than some dog barking in a nearby alley. Opened it again, now with marginally better vision. Fourteen steps downward, too narrow for his feet, will have to leap three at a time up if things get heated. At the bottom, another wooden door, sturdier this time, and a torch of veilfire to offer only the minimal light.

Only one way to proceed, from here. The Bull pushed the second door open.

A small, stuffy, torch-lit room now, with nothing much but a bench and a dwarf sitting on it, whittling. Behind him was another door, but now the Bull could hear noises from behind it: rapid beating of drums, and an occasional high-pitched _ping_ thrown in by some metallic instrument. Some kind of cultist hangout dungeon? How many other hidden hangouts there were in the city that the Bull didn't know about?

The dwarf reluctantly raised his eyes from the piece of wood he was working on, and looked at the Bull, unimpressed. “Five silvers,” he said. Not a stranger to the carta, if the tattoos on his face were the real thing.

“Five? A bit much, don't you think?” the Bull said, to see what the response would be. Also, five silvers _would_ get him several decent meals at his favoured tavern.

The dwarf heaved a bored sight – had probably heard the same words more than once. He crossed his arms and craned his neck to glare at the Bull, not a beat intimidated by a large, horned Qunari very nearly filling the entire space. Not a rare sight, then, a qunari, whatever the place was. Good to know.

“Peacock's on stage tonight, so yeah, five sodding silvers. That what you here for, count the money. Otherwise, fuck off.”

The drumming inside intensified. The Bull groped in his pockets for coins, and counted five silvers for the dwarf, who casually weighted them on his hand and tossed them into a tin box beside his bench. The box jingled in a way that told the Bull wasn't the first to pay for entrance that evening.

The dwarf wordlessly returned to his whittling, so the Bull took that as a permission to push the third door open.

Blood everywhere, hooded cultists, demon summonings muttered in ancient Tevene – that's what the Bull wouldn't have been surprised to see. What he really found was a room with a bar counter, several round tables, and a stage.

The Bull had been to a few 'Tevinter' bars across both Orlais and Ferelden. They were usually flashy places in town centres, always named 'The Golden Dragon' or 'Magister's Temptation' or something else equally fake, just as Tevinter as Queen Anora's smallclothes. Popular among the young and fashionable folk with too much money in their pockets and too little responsibilities awaiting them the next morning.

This wasn't like those places. This was dim torchlight, smoke in the air, dirty corners. On the Bull's side of the room there was a small bar counter. On the opposite side, a small stage, and in between, six... seven tables, with people around them. And not only humans – a quick glance about the space revealed at least three dwarves and even an elf. Not exclusively for 'Vints, then, although the majority of humans seemed to hail from the Imperium, judging by the style of their clothing.

No one paid the Bull any particular attention; a few fleeting, disinterested glances was all he got. Most of the people were looking at the stage.

The Bull looked, too. Would be freaking hard not to.

The stage was small, almost on the floor level, and there were four Tevinters on it – it was the shape of the nose that gave 'Vints away every time, noble or peasant; Krem had it too. Three of the 'Vints were at the back of the stage, in front of a velvety, deep turquoise curtain that covered the entire wall. Two of them were men, naked from belt to their necks, muscles rippling as they worked on their wooden drums. The third one was a woman, dressed in a tight white dress that left her lean belly and shoulders bare, a dark braid crowning her head. She held a metallic triangle above her head, touching it with a bloodstone stick from time to time to weave the drumbeat into a rhythmic melody.

The fourth 'Vint was at the front of the stage. He had a scarf in his hand and another tied over his head, thin enough to reveal the outline of his eyes. Like the drummers', his body was bare above the belt, save for some sort of sleeve draping his left arm. The rest was covered with some complicated arrangement of silken robes that seemed to shift from colour to colour as he moved – a fitting stage name, Peacock. And shit, did he _move_.

To describe what the man was doing as dancing would be a fucking understatement. He was cutting through the air with his body, the air following a breath behind, like it couldn't keep up with the curves of his arms, snaps of his hips, arch of his throat. This, this was the sort of thing the Bull admired – every muscle controlled, every small gesture intentional, the body an epitome of perfect harmony of grace, strength, and music. It was a dance, but the Bull felt the sheer power of it to where he was standing, and he had no doubt that if needed, it could turn into something deadly in a heartbeat.

The beat of the drums had been nearly erratic when the Bull had just entered, but now it slowed into something almost hypnotic. The dancer handled the silken scarf with such delicacy that in the smoky, dim light it looked almost like magic, like a colourful spell sliding between his fingers, and wasn't that a distracting thought on several levels.

Too distracting. The Bull wasn't there for hot dancers, pity as it was.

To avoid attracting unnecessary attention the Bull picked an empty stool and sat down beside a dwarf at one of the back tables, as if to enjoy the show. Thanks to Gatt, he knew what his main mark looked like, and locating her in the relatively small space didn't take long; her little group was the only one that paid no attention to the stage.

Ulpia Severina shared a table with four other 'Vints, two men and two women, and they were all hunched towards the centre of the table, heatedly talking – arguing? – over something in hushed whispers.

What _should_ be done was easy: capture the target for questioning if possible; if not, kill her. The problem was with _how_. Outside Seheron and Par Vollen, the Bull had no official rights to act – he had his orders from his superiors, but according to Fereldan law he'd be a criminal no different from Severina, if he killed her. Getting captured by the city guards was as little in his interests as becoming a wanted man, and one of those options would prevail unless he killed every man and woman present. That he naturally couldn't do – the only one he knew to be guilty was Severina, and besides, even he couldn't fight thirty 'Vints simultaneously and win.

The Bull couldn't act without at least a half-assed plan. But he also couldn't let a woman, who burned children for her twisted purposes, run free. The wisest course of action would be to follow Severina when she left; the Bull shifted his position on the stool. He was patient. He could wait. Besides, he _had_ paid the five silvers.

Damn, it was even worth the money. The Bull kept Severina and her companions in his range of vision, but let himself pay attention to the dancer again. While he had been contemplating how to deal with the Venatori, the dancer had stepped down from the stage and continued his performance sliding from table to table, letting the hem of his scarf brush an odd shoulder as if it wasn't all with calculated intention.

The Bull caught the moment when the dancer's veiled eyes fell on him. The 'Vint didn't halt, or flinch, or frown, but in the low light the Bull more felt than saw his eyes boring into him. Felt a jolt in his insides, too. Yeah, damn, were he not on a job, he could have thought of a thing or two to do with a guy like that.

The dancer turned his eyes away and didn't look back at the Bull, but when he passed the Bull's table, the Bull felt a light brush of fingertips on his shoulder, deft and quick and definitely not casual. The touch was gone in two heartbeats, but it left a tingling sensation under the Bull's skin, like each of his nerves had been electrified. Which, shit. How the fuck had the Bull missed that the guy was a mage? The fact itself didn't necessarily matter, a lot of 'Vints down South were mages, and only a fraction of them worked for the Venatori, but it was something the Bull liked to know about a person. Denerim wasn't Seheron, and even Seheron wasn't what it used to be, but if shit got real, _knowing_ would save that one second in a fight that the brain would otherwise need to catch up with the situation.

The dancer sauntered off to the next table, which was the one at which Severina and her gang were occupying. No one at the table paid to him any attention, until the dancer cut his movements and stopped beside Severina.

“Do I have the pleasure of talking to Ulpia Severina?” he asked, letting his timbre carry over the sound of the drumbeat. The Bull both saw and sensed the attention of the entire room focusing on the dancer, and the woman on stage exchanged a quick bemused glance with the drummers. Talking clearly wasn't part of the show, and the Bull had served long enough under the Ben-Hassrath to know that the dancer addressing their main mark was not a coincidence. Crap, if the guy was involved with the Venatori, he'd have to be stopped, too.

Severina looked up at him, eyebrow raised, like being talked to by a dancer was an offence. She didn't deign to reply. Maybe the dancer wasn't with her then, or maybe she was acting. The drumbeat still continued, but a quick glance at the stage showed confused frowns on the drummers' faces. The Bull felt for his knives; times like this he really missed his axe.

The dancer yanked off the scarf on his eyes and smiled with his teeth, in a way that – fuck –

“I have a delivery for you, my lady. On behalf of Felix Alexius.”

Shit happened quickly, then. Severina's eyes widened in recognition, while two of her companions stumbled to their feet, or tried to, when the table with all the five 'Vints exploded in fire.

The Bull was on his feet and bolting towards the burning table in half a heartbeat, knife in hand. Whatever fire spell the dancer had used, it had been powerful enough to send the 'Vints into blind panic – they were screaming, but alive, which meant they could retaliate and endanger every bystander in the room.

Two leaps and the Bull was among them, pushing his knife between the ribs of the nearest magister. Damn, the dancer –

He heard a shout – the dancer – and saw him at the other side of the table, arms spread wide at his sides, lightning rippling at his fingertips, flames fucking _dancing_ around him, and the word flashed in the Bull's mind quick and unwatched: _ataashi_.

“Move!” the dancer yelled – or was it _fool_? – voice carrying over the general screaming, and the Bull realised it was directed at him; the dancer's eyes bored into him, dark and furious, and the lightning erupted in the air, moving from one panicked magister to another in deadly chain of bolts, silencing a scream every time it hit a new target, and _crap_ , the Bull was right in its trajectory –

But the lightning hissed and dissolved into the air right before it should've hit him, like it had collided with some sort of a barrier. There was no more screaming, only the general noise of people pushing through the door to get out, and thick smoke all over the place, blocking the view.

The Bull stepped back, scanning the crowd, the corners, the stage, but the dancer had vanished. On the floor, almost at the Bull's feet, were the five charred corpses of Ulpia Severina and her gang. Which, yeah, had been the Bull's objective in the long run, but not before some answers; Severina had burned the orphanage, but on whose orders and why was still unknown. But apparently getting the woman killed wasn't on his list only.

To kill five magisters (or four – technically the Bull finished one of them) in one go – shit, it wasn't something your average mage could do. The dancer had had the element of surprise, and he'd obviously had a plan, but still, he'd killed five fucking magisters with two spells of fire and lightning. Mage of that calibre could be a potential threat to people much like Severina had been.

But he had also done the Bull's job for him, and cast a barrier over the Bull to shield him from the lightning.

The Bull's orders had been to find more information about the Venatori league, and Ulpia Severina had been the only substantial lead. The dead didn't talk, but... _Peacock_ had obviously got on Severina's tracks, so there was a fat chance he knew more of her connections. And he had provided the Bull with his next lead on a silver tray, even.

 _On behalf of Felix Alexius,_ was it?

xXx

Turned out _Felix Alexius_ was a twisted case of all kinds of fuckery, starting with taint, taking a tour via almost exposing the Venatori league, and ending in getting murdered by those same Venatori. And somewhere in between there was a Dorian of House Pavus, following Felix Alexius' notes to find his killers and killing them back.

xXx

“Well,” said Dorian of House Pavus, when the Bull cornered him in his small private room in a different Tevinter hangout after the end of his performance. He eyed the axe that the Bull had this time taken with him. “I suppose it rather was too much to hope that I'd never see you again.”

The Bull remembered the brush of fingers and the spark of electricity under his skin the last time he'd seen Peacock on stage, and grinned. “Still remember me, huh?”

Dorian Pavus, who hadn't yet changed out of his dancer's attire, sighed in a way that could only be described as vexed; torchlight glistened on his still sweaty chest as it heaved. He reluctantly put the book he'd been skimming back on a wobbly table, the only piece of furniture in the room, fingers lingering on the book's cover like a promise to come back to it once the inevitable but tedious business was dealt with. Wasn't an act that many people could pull convincingly in the face of a looming qunari with a huge axe, but not may people could blow up murderous magisters in almost one go, either, so.

Dorian crossed his arms and considered the Bull calmly, the restless shadows almost concealing the hint of a smirk on his lips as he asked, “Well then, do tell me: what is it that you want?”

“I think,” the Bull said, “that we have a common point of interest.”

One of the eyebrows arched deliberately. “Oh?”

“Yeah. We've both got our eyes on the same enemy, and you did nice work with your magic back in that den of 'Vints. I've got to say, you're pretty good at blowing guys up.”

“It's significantly more impressive than hitting them with a sharp piece of metal, yes.”

“Hey, whoa, let's not get crazy.” The Bull stroked the shaft of his axe with his thumb and grinned; blowing guys up was pretty cool all right, but _nothing_ beat hitting things with a sharp piece of metal. “I'm _very_ good with my weapon.”

For some reason, Dorian rolled his eyes. “You brought up a common enemy just to get to say that, didn't you?”

“Hey, I can give you a demonstration, if you like.”

"There's no need for that." Dorian looked up at the Bull with the same look in his eyes that he'd had back in the underground hangout a few months back, only now there weren't scarves blocking the view. Maybe it was the dim torchlight, or the hint of lightning the Bull could suddenly sense, but that gaze was _intense_. “Consider me convinced.”

xXx

“Wait,” Dorian said later, incredulous, “Are you saying that you actually _were_ talking about working together to root the Venatori?”

The Bull paused his attempts at fixing the table and glanced up at him. “Uh, yeah? Thought I was pretty clear about it.”

“Andraste preserve me,” said Dorian, and laughed.

X

 


End file.
